LETTER: King code’s pointless overkill

Donald Trump and Markus Jooste (Boardroom Tails, January 17) raises the question: just what has been the point of the King code (1, 2, 3, 4 — and, heaven forbid, possibly more)?

It imposes voluntary corporate governance rules on companies that seem to result only in huge integrated reports that nobody reads, and forces more and more internal regulation on companies, leading to “compliance overkill” and an accompanying administrative burden.

Until the villains are brought to book, debacles such as Steinhoff will continue to make a mockery of “good corporate governance”. In the UK, news of a “Steinhoff” would have led to the arrest of the perpetrators on the day it broke, and them having their day in court not long after.

David Alston
By e-mail